Comic books are a beautiful thing. They’re colourful and amusing and are a gateway into a life of reading, which everyone knows is good for the brain but is something no one really wants to do. Flipping through the pages of The Fantastic Four or Captain America really gives the reader a rush as they witness acts of superhuman abilities, both mental and physical, and dream of a world where they can fly and lift cars. When the world of video games began expanding and evolving, alongside comic books and their fan base, nerds around the world hoped for a glimpse of being able to play as their favorite hero and, for once, fly around the city instead of just witnessing it happening beyond their control. Both gaming and comic books have come a long way since the early days of Captain America’s Hitler hunts and pixelated pong games, and the two have combined into something really special. Many superhero action games are sadly made horribly because with the comic book world being a major supplier of modern movies, game developers know they can sell a half-assed game simply on the name alone and that’s just plain wrong.

Spider-Man and Venom: Maximum Carnage

There is absolutely nothing better than a good old fashioned ‘90s beat-em-up game. Spider-Man and Venom: Maximum Carnage was based off the comic book mini series of the same name. The fourteen part mini series played host to a selection of comic book characters that continued to increase as the story unfolded. The game saw some of these characters and did miss certain parts of the story itself but the option to play as the heroic Spider-Man or the villainous Venom is really what piqued the curiosity of gamers young and old. Either character followed their own specific storyline, which gave the game a lot of replay value and the overall length of the game was respectable for its genre. This is what the next Spider-Man game should be…what ever happened to the beat-em-up?

Marvel Ultimate Alliance

Marvel Ultimate Alliance was an idea that spawned from the widely popular “X-Men Legends” game that centered on the ability to choose your characters; to make a team of heroes you want, regardless of whether they would ever actually fight together in the comics. You could play as the fantastic four, your favorite selection of X-Men, or whatever four character combination you could think of. Ultimate Alliance later spawned a sequel which gave a much richer roster of heroes and villains, yet lacked the real special something that it’s predecessor gave us all.

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MK vs. DC might be the worst game in *both* franchise’s history. I’m not sure if this was a 10 to 1 type of countdown, but its just terrible that THAT game sits at the close of the article. PG fatalities in a game where BOTH mediums regularly show people dying?? No excuse.

So many classic arcade games I’ve never played it hurts. Still, Mortal Kombat vs DC Universe and Injustice usually come up on these lists and I’ve also never played those, so I should definitely check them out as soon as I can to see what all the fuzz is about. By the way, I wrote a similar article for my website [gamesretrospect.com]